[THIN] Re: Hp Universal Driver
- From: "Daniel Sidler" <daniel.sidler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 25 May 2007 13:14:40 +0200
Rick,
Thanks for the info. Trying to tap into your experience here: when you say that
" HP UPDs are a big and ugly replacement for HP printer drivers that are really
really ugly", do you make any difference between PCL and PS drivers?
In the past there was this kind of commonplace that PS drivers were more stable
than PCL, because they left out most of the fancy features the PCL drivers
sported. Would you second that?
Dan
________________________________
From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Rick Mack
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 10:32 PM
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Re: Hp Universal Driver
Hi Greg,
The HP Universal printer drivers (PCL, PS, x86 or x64) are a
replacement for other HP printer drivers, nothing more. On x86, they are an
alternative to using a whole bunch of bad HP printer drivers. In an x64
environment, they're a passable but not ideal substitute for older HP printer
drivers that HP will probably never port to x64.
The HP UPDs are big and kind of ugly because they've got to provide
every bit of functionality for every HP printer out there. That means a huge
number of DLLs and an absolute dependence on bidirectional comms to figure out
how to configure themselves with regard to bins etc. But they do work, and
compared to some drivers like the 4500, 4650 etc that can crash a spooler
they're relatively benign.
In a nutshell, the HP UPDs are a big and ugly replacement for HP
printer drivers that are really really ugly, or that haven't been ported to
x64. In the x86 world, HP drivers are one of the major reasons why the PS4
printer subsystem is still unstable so that's an area where the HP UPDs can at
least help.
Regardless of how stable the Citrix printing subsystem is now, if the
spooler gets hosed by an HP driver, it's not going to do anything for you. It
took Citrix nearly a year to sort out the PS4 printer subsystem, and that was a
year of a lot of pain exascerbated by a flakey patching mechanism. But the real
culprit for unstable printing nowadays is almost always HP.
The HP UPD should NEVER be viewed as a replacement for the Citrix UPD
because it doesn't do anything for printing efficiency (compression), TS
printing CPU overhead or anything else we normally associate with a UPD like
Citrix' or ThinPrint. It doesn't replace other manufacturers printer drivers,
it doesn't handle host based printers etc. All it does is give you a choice
when you find that the HP driver that comes with your new HP printer is crap
when you test it with the Citrix Addprinters or StressPrinter utility.
Once you've replaced all the really bad HP drivers with the HP UPD, you
can start getting some real mileage out of the Citrix UPD.
regards,
Rick
--
Ulrich Mack
Commander Australia
On 5/24/07, Greg Reese <gareese@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
just throwing this out there to see what the rest of you have
done.
I have a steadily growing collection of 64 bit servers. 64 bit
drivers for HP printers are pretty scarce. We have a user with a Color LaserJet
6410. Hp has itanium 64 bit drivers but not ones for AMD.
HP has a universal driver listed. Has anyone used this and if
so, any trouble from it on 64 bit windows 2003 sp2 servers?
Thanks!
Greg
Other related posts:
